


And Do the Things My Fathers Learned To Do

by Barb Cummings (Rahirah)



Series: The Barbverse [43]
Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon, Angst, Domestic, F/M, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-11-20
Updated: 2009-11-20
Packaged: 2017-10-03 11:30:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 958
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17537
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rahirah/pseuds/Barb%20Cummings
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Xander takes a break. Spike helps.</p>
            </blockquote>





	And Do the Things My Fathers Learned To Do

**Author's Note:**

> This story is set in the same universe as _A Raising in the Sun_, _Necessary Evils_, et. al. (See the [Barbverse Timeline](http://sleepingjaguars.com/buffy/viewpage.php?page=timeline) for specifics.) It contains spoilers for previous works in the series.

Xander was never quite certain how he ended up sitting on the roof of Sunnydale Memorial Hospital, listening to the roar of the air conditioners and drinking warm flat beer with a vampire. He was sure it had seemed like a really good idea at the time. He took a sip of whatever weird imported shit it was that Spike was drinking these days, and grimaced. "I'm going to screw it up," he announced.

 

"Likely," Spike agreed. "Most parents do." Long pale fingers dove into the inner pocket of his leather jacket, emerging with a pair of slightly worse-for-wear Sol Cubanos. Probably - no, positively stolen. He whipped out a wicked-looking pocket knife and snipped the ends expertly, and flicked open his old silver Zippo. Rolling each cigar above the flame, he puffed them one at a time to life. "Here," he said, handing one to Xander. "Traditional."

 

Xander eyed the cigar dubiously. "Right. Because what better way to celebrate the arrival of a new life than the gift of carcinogens?"

 

Spike blew a smoke ring. "Don't be a ponce."

 

What the hell. How often did an evil soulless fiend make you a present of a hot cigar? Xander placed the cigar between his lips, inhaled deeply, choked, and doubled over coughing.

 

Spike watched for a moment, sighed, and shook his head dolefully. He leaned over and thumped Xander on the back with a certain sadistic enthusiasm. "Sodding Philistine," he said. "Now, don't inhale this time, you ignorant berk. Savour it. 'S not a bloody fag."

 

How the hell did you smoke without inhaling? Just lie back and think of Bill Clinton, Xander supposed. Spike took another puff and settled back against a vent cover, head tipped back, face raised to the pale city stars. There was a far-away look in his eyes. "Always remind me of my Dad, these do."

 

Reminders that Spike hadn't sprung full-grown from the brow ridges of Drusilla were... kinda creepy, actually. "Yeah, I get that too, but it's with empty six-packs." Xander frowned. "You sound almost like you didn't rip his throat out and dance on his still-warm corpse."

 

Spike sent another smoke ring to chase the first. "Another brilliant deduction. How does he do it?" He tucked his free hand behind his head and stretched his booted feet out towards the edge of the roof. "On my fifteenth birthday I sneaked into his study and stole myself one of his cigars - hadn't a bloody clue, and fair made myself sick before he caught me."

 

"Are there woodsheds and weird repressed English rituals involved in the rest of this story? Because if so, I pass."

 

"He gave me a thrashing," Spike went on, "and then he sat me down an' taught me how to smoke 'em properly. Promised he'd get me a box of my own for my sixteenth."

 

Funny. Xander was pretty sure he'd gotten promises and a smack to the head for his fifteenth birthday too, but he wasn't nearly so nostalgic about it. "Did he?"

 

"He died before the year was out," Spike replied shortly. "Found the box in his papers when Mum and I went through them, though. El Rey del Mundos, real Cubans." He let smoke trickle out his nostrils. "Blubbed like a baby over the sodding things. Smoked 'em in his memory, one a year, until..." The unwonted softness in his eyes vanished, replaced by the usual mocking glint. "No matter. He'd be spinning in his grave if he knew what his pride and joy was up to these days."

 

"I suppose the whole evil vampire, slaughterer of thousands thing would be a blot on the family escutcheon." Xander took an experimental puff. "What the hell is an escutcheon, anyway?"

 

"Christ, no. 'Cause I'm in trade. The old man made a lot of pretty speeches 'bout the nobility of the working man, but he'd be mortified to see me one of 'em." Spike regarded his cigar with a fond smile. "Always meant well, though. Buck up, mate. Our Anyanka's bright enough to undo ninety percent of whatever damage you do to the rug-rat's fragile psyche."

 

Xander brightened. This was true. A little Anya made everything better. An ambulance raced out of the parking lot below, red lights flashing, its siren tinny with distance. Up here, he could look down on the twinkling lights of 2:00 A.M Sunnydale with a benevolent and slightly tipsy eye, and pretend it was all a huge game of The Sims. Or an episode of _Boston Legal_, and he wasn't going to think about which one of them was Denny Crane. When he went downstairs, it would all be real again.

 

"I'm glad it's a girl," he said. "I mean, she's a girl. I mean, Molly's a girl. It's less... fraught, you know?" He drew on the cigar. No cough. Maybe he could get the hang of this, after all. He downed the last of his beer, checked his watch. "I should go. Anya's going to be awake soon."

 

He got to his feet, unsteady more because of the twenty-four hours with no sleep than the beer. Spike rose with considerably more grace, heading for the stairs. Xander followed, wondering what the maintenance guys would make of the finger-sized dents in the metal of the security door in the morning. "Hey, Spike. D'you think you and Buffy will ever...?"

 

Spike shrugged, his expression indecipherable. "Me vampire, her Slayer. The clatter of li'l stakes was never in the cards. No sense fretting about it."

 

"Guess not." Either way. He shouldered ahead of Spike, suddenly eager. He wanted to be there when Anya woke up, possibly as the bearer of sandwiches, or an enormous, impractical stuffed animal. "Let's go see my daughter."

 

 

END


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